After solving the problem of terrorists coming into the US by using an executive order banning Muslims from entering the country from places where he does not have business dealings, Donald (Prince of Orange) Trump is doing something similar to Big Tech.

For a while now Silicon Valley has insisted that it needs shedloads of H-1B workers because there are not enough skilled US workers to do the job. However this has led to criticism that the tech companies were using the programme to bring in cheap workers from India and China while US developers were locked out because they were too expensive.

Trump’s administration has drafted an executive order to force businesses to try to hire an American first and if they recruit foreign workers, priority would be given to the most highly paid.

According to Bloomberg, the draft says that the US’s immigration policies should be designed and implemented to serve, first and foremost, the U.S. national interest.

“Visa programs for foreign workers ... should be administered in a manner that protects the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, and that prioritises the protection of American workers -- our forgotten working people -- and the jobs they hold.”

The foreign work visas were originally established to help US companies recruit from abroad when they couldn’t find qualified local workers. In many cases, the companies are hiring for highly technical positions in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. But there have been allegations that the programmes have been abused to bring in cheaper workers from overseas to fill jobs that otherwise may go to Americans.

There have been calls from all sides of the political spectrum to sort out the mess and none of the ideas mooted will bring much joy to big tech.

The move will cause a lot of headaches for outsourcers, primarily from India, who run the technology departments of large corporations with largely imported staff.

India’s technology companies, led by Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys and Wipro, have argued they are helping corporations become more competitive by handling their technology operations with specialized staff. They also contend the visa programs allow them to keep jobs in the U.S. and that if they have to pay more for staff, they will handle more of the work remotely from less expensive markets like India.

Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar said that inspections and investigations in the past have shown no cases of wrongdoing by Indian IT services companies, which have always been fully legally compliant.

“The industry is open to any kind of checks in the system, but they should not cause any hindrance to the smooth operation of companies.”

A spokeswoman for Infosys pointed out that there was a huge skills shortage in the US. “We continue to hire and invest locally... but the skill shortages in the US and the availability of technically skilled workforce in various global markets mean we also rely upon visa programs to supplement these skills.”

While there will be little sympathy from US workers, many US companies have become addicted to foreign outsourcing which has been used to slash their costs. Some analysts fear that by stopping this flow of workers could see US companies suffer.

In the last five years, the robot workforce at Amazon has increased from zero to 45,000 and most of that was during 2016.

E-commerce and cloud giant Amazon has revealed that it now has 45,000 robots across 20 fulfilment centres around the world.

This is a 50 percent increase on the same time last year, when the company said that it employed 30,000 robots alongside its 306,000 people.

Robots are used to automate the picking and packing process at large warehouses. They are 16in tall and weigh 145kg, travel at five miles per hour and can carry packages that weigh 317kg.

Most of the robots joined when Amazon acquired Kiva Systems in 2012 for $775 million. The best part about the robots is that they do not strike for better conditions, like Amazon's German workers, nor do they create PR scandals by camping outside the plant because their pay is so low, like some of the British workers.

The Seattle Times said that although the robot growth is huge, it mirrors the growth of Amazon’s human workforce which also grew by about the same size last year.

Dutch chipmaker NXP has been accused of forcing workers in its overseas factories to work too long and undermining local trade unions.

The accusation is in a report published by the Dutch multinational research institute Somo and GoodElectronics.

Both organisations are involved in trying to improve working conditions in low-wage countries.

Somo reports that the workers, mainly women, in the Philippines and Thailand are forced to work overtime and during national holidays.

It added that workers in Thailand,there are also too few measures for safeguarding the workers.

NXP claims that the a 12-hour day is perfectly normal in the chip industry. Apparently the unions disagree.

NXP has 27,000 workers, 3,000 of whom work in the Netherlands, it is not clear if the Dutch workers are expected to work 12 hours, although we suspect not.

For those who came in late, NXP Semiconductors provides mixed signal and standard RF, analogue, power management, interface, security and digital processing chips. It is one of those which has done rather well with the boom in mobile tech. It made US$ 5.647 Billion in 2014 and was so flush it bought Freescale.

Whew, I thought I was the only one. But in all seriousness, journalist Wang Yu has spent some time working in Foxconn, specifically on iPhone 5 production lines, and what he lived through is quite shocking. Not that anyone will care, but still.

Apparently, Yu now suffers from “painful muscle memory”, directly related to Apple’s iPhone 5. It is said this is a mental flashback to the pain experienced by repetitive, drone-like manufacturing of Apple’s shiny gear.

Yu pointed out that the line he worked in required a minimum of 17 workers. However, many workers resigned and although there were only seven or eight left, their production target of 5,600 panels was unchanged.

He noted that the cooling agent for the machines smells unbearably and is bad for the workers’ noses and throats. Still, the company does not give out masks every day, as it is supposed to, but rather every week.

Most won’t care, because that’s just too far down the iHole for them to think, and quite understandably – the iPhone 5 is just to shiny to look beyond. However, for all Apple’s alleged interest into its supply lines, one of our readers said it best:” That damn sweatshop better deliver those new phones, otherwise Tim Cook will personally throw a couple dozen workers off the roof.”

Foxconn announced on Thursday that it sat down and resolvedthe dispute with its workers from Wuhan, China. The company claims that the protest involved 150 of 32,000 workers at the campus, some of which threatened the company with suicide.

Foxcon said that although the dispute was resolved peacefully, 45 workers resigned. It refused to provide more details but, apparently, one worker claims that he was promised additional compensation.

Some of the workers were disgruntled over forced moves from Shenzen to Wuhan, latter of which is said to have much worse working conditions. One of these workers claims that they were promised $450 a month and overtime pay, ultimately receiving less than a third of this amount.

You may recall that Foxconn was hit by a wave of suicides in its plants in China. After showing enviable ingenuity and compassion by putting up safety nets, the company resorted to other means such as psychiatry and talking to its workers. It is said that this is a result of pressure applied by Apple and other clients.

In yet another move that shows it cares, Foxconn began investing in robots. The company also moved some of its production to central and western China as this region has lower labor costs.

Foxconn said: “The welfare of our employees is our top priority, and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated fairly and that their rights are fully protected.” Perhaps they should’ve painted hearts on their safety nets, as it would make a much better statement of their generous benevolence.

HP has given its employees first refusal on the last ever batch of TouchPad webOS-powered tablets, and demand has been high enough to take the company's website out.

HP's Employee Purchase Programme site which is a staff-only service where discounted goods can be procured has been bogged down by demand. An HP staffer who leaked to webOSroundup, said it took almost three hours to place an order for a single TouchPad once news broke of their availability. Many users were left with error messages complaining of high traffic and were unable to order their discount tablets at all.

It seems unlikely that any of the limited production run which was designed to dispose of unused parts in its inventory will make it out into the channel for retail sale.

According to Reuters s eBay was trying to build a rival service at the time. The pair have been hitting each other with handbags for years in civil court over allegations that online giant eBay took a stake in Craigslist and then misappropriated confidential information while it secretly planned its own classifieds site.

Now prosecutors have subpoenaed seeks information regarding several eBay personalities, including founder and Chairman Pierre Omidyar and Joshua Silverman, the former Skype chief executive who served as eBay's representative on Craigslist's board.

eBay spokeswoman, Amanda Miller, said the company would cooperate in any inquiry related to the disputes with Craigslist but added that the online auctioneer believes that Craigslist's allegations against eBay are without merit.Many of the requests in the subpoena match word for word language in another civil lawsuit filed by Craigslist against eBay.

Fears that the struggling financial industry might cut back on IT workers are proving unfounded. According IT recruitment report from specialist financial services recruiter, McGregor Boyall, hiring for both contract and permanent roles has remained steady when compared with the first quarter of 2011.

Volumes are, unsurprisingly still significantly down on the boom times of 2010 but things could be a lot worse.Laurie Boyall, Managing Director at McGregor Boyall said: “Our findings indicate that the market has now evened out in terms of recovery and that the rapid growth we saw last year has stabilised.”

The results showed that the highest number of vacancies were within risk, representing 16% of all IT requirements received. The report also revealed that 40% of all requirements were within development, with a particular need for those with Java and C# experience.

Boyall added that it was fairly likely that more regulatory reform will take place. This will likely to see financial institutions having to rethink some of their IT strategies and will inevitably lead to a renewed spike in the demand for IT specialists – particularly contractors – to work on large-scale projects.

Aussie government workers are in hot water after they formed a company to bid for an IT contract and awarded it to themselves.

The Victorian government's IT agency is being investigated by Coppers after an audit revealed that the public servants awarded themselves a contract that led to work worth $1.5 million. Six contractors and staff have been fired and there is an organisation-wide review of CenITex, the body charged with centralising public sector technology services.

Two CenITex project managers used a two-day-old shelf company to bid for a tender in May last year. They then sat in on the selection panel, then awarded themselves the contract. They were able to underbid other tenderers, including IBM. They won a contract to deliver ''hosting services'' for $145,000, but since then pocketed $1.5 million for work they contracted to others.

A government audit found that CenITex failed to vet the shelf company's credentials. Police were asked by CenITex to investigate two staff members for possible fraud and obtaining secret commissions.

The problem is that that the former staff told the cops that they had declared their interest in the company, and had approval from higher levels of management for the work to be awarded to their company. This could get very messy.

Search outfit Google, which claims to have done no evil, is facing Chinese hunger strikers. According to IT World, these are advertising resellers who are protesting that Google has terminated their contracts.

More than 200 employees from the seven Chinese ad reselling companies began protesting outside Google's offices in Shanghai. More than 40 of those participating have gone on a hunger strike that will last until the group's grievances are resolved.

Google told the seven ad resellers that it would be ending the partnerships in September, but refused to say why. The group has even written an open letter to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, asking them for their intervention. All the companies depended on Google to be viable and no one really knows why the search engine has suddenly pulled the plug.

The hungry ad resellers want Google to say sorry and pay $7 million in compensation. Google on the other had has told them to go forth and multiply. It says that it has done nothing illegal and was acting in terms of its contract. It apparently never tells partners why it has to end contracts. However it did say that it was hoping to find new resellers to partner with so we can provide a “better service to our advertisers.”

Google is not having a good time behind the bamboo curtain. In March, the company started to stop censoring its search results in the country. Now the Google.cn site no longer operates as a search engine, but instead provides a link to Google's Hong Kong page, which offers unfiltered results.

What appears to have happened is the move to Hong Kong made it difficult for the Chinese resellers to flog enough adverts. However it is a bit of bad PR for Google. Starving people is always bad PR.